Death
Maybrick's health deteriorated suddenly on 27 April 1889, and he died fifteen days later. The circumstances of his death were deemed suspicious by his brothers and an inquest, held in a local hotel, came to the verdict that arsenical poisoning was the most likely cause, administered by persons unknown.
Suspicion immediately fell on Florence and she was arrested some days later. She stood trial at Liverpool Crown Court and, after a lengthy hearing, the fairness of which was the subject of some debate in later years, she was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. The way in which the judge conducted her trial was questioned and this was probably the reason her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, some of which she served in a prison in Woking, Surrey, and then at the "House of Detention" at Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.
A re-examination of her case resulted in her release in 1904. She supported herself through various occupations until her death on 23 October 1941. From her initial incarceration until her death, she never saw her children again.
Read more about this topic: James Maybrick
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“Can even death dry up
These new delighted lakes, conclude
Our kneeling as cattle by all-generous waters?”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“For the bright side of the painting I had a limited sympathy. My visions were of shipwreck and famine; of death or captivity among barbarian hordes; of a lifetime dragged out in sorrow and tears, upon some gray and desolate rock, in an ocean unapproachable and unknown.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
“A rat crept softly through the vegetation
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
While I was fishing in the dull canal
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse
Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck
And on the king my father’s death before him.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)